Our greedy world

VETERAN ARTIST and social critic Paisal Theerapongvisanuporn returns to the scene after an absence of several years with the politically-charged photo exhibition “The Nightmare Remains” at the Kathmandu Photo Gallery.
The show will display dozens of Paisal’s photographs, many of them from the late 1980s.
There are conceptual photographs focusing on such symbols as the Thai flag, Victory Monument, bank notes, golf balls, the American flag, the Japanese flag and broken dolls that symbolise capitalism, political conflicts and social sickness.
Known for his surrealistic paintings inspired by Salvador Dali, Paisal’s images have a surrealistic bent and are strongly critical of both Thai politics and social issues.
Between 1977 and 1997, Paisal turned his attention to creative photography, transforming mundane objects from daily life into a symbolic language to vent his anxieties about Thai society at that time.
 He picks everyday objects like water tubs and eggs to convey his displeasure at life’s inequalities.
Dolls are stuffed into cans and jars to speak of child prostitution. A golf ball painted in the national tri-colours is teed up on a green covered with bank notes. There’s also an ox skull above an empty red bucket, a dry water tap clenched in its teeth.
Spray-painted cartons of eggs are shown in different colours, some with misshapen embryos inside their fragile shells as a comment on the terrifying insubstantiality of man’s reliance on the technological world.
The gargantuan problems of national and transnational corporate usurpation of natural resources, greed, corruption, exploitation and oppression reflected in Paisal’s photography almost 30 years ago, have not only remained, but flourished into the accepted norm.
 EYE OPENING
- “The Nightmare Remains” runs from Saturday until September 29 at the Kathmandu Photo Gallery, 87 Pan Road, near the Indian Temple on Silom Road.
- Meet the artist at a reception on August 17 at 6.30pm.
- For more information, visit www.Kathmandu-Bkk.com.